The Red, White and Blah: 2016

Sunday, 6 March 2016

French Napoleonic Infantry 1807 - 1812 (Victrix) 28mm

So after almost 6 months I've finally finished. It's taken a long time but with Christmas in between I've struggled to focus on them. I've also spent a lot of time on other figures too which have got in the way, but here they are a second battalion of French Infantry.

These are from Victrix and the sculpts are lovely, the box comes with 60 plastic figures with a a huge number of poses possible, which is actually part of the problem. It took me a very long time to work out what poses were possible and even now I see what other people have done and it makes me realise that a lot more is possible. As I said the quality of these is very good, there was very little flash and the detail really does help keep the painting simple. The only downside though is that the bayonets are brittle, when I say brittle I mean if you blow them, they're likely to fall off! Even since I've finished them I've had to replace a couple, so much to the point that I removed them all together from the voltigeur company. I hadn't realised when I put them together that bearskins for grenadiers had been abandoned in 1810 so this unit is really all over the place. I was aiming for an 1813 unit who perhaps hadn't been issued new uniforms to fit the 1812 regulations, now I don't really know what I've got!

Again I've been using the usual websites to help complete these. The flag came from GMB and is a much nicer design than the one provided in the box.

After this I'm starting on the first of three boxes of Russian Infantry from Warlord games and a couple of Russian Generals from Front Rank - all part of the community and monthly projects at My Wargaming Life. If' you're not seen it before check it out!

Friday, 29 January 2016

French Mounted Generals of Division and Brigade (Bachelu, II Corps, Foy, II Corps and G.of Brigade Campi, II Corps) (Perry Miniatures) 28m

Here are a couple of shots of the first minis I've managed to get done since Christmas, it's been a very busy month so I'm very happy to have them finished.

They come from the Perry Miniatures Mounted Generals of Division and Brigade and the set contains Generals Toussaint Campi, Maximilien Foy and Gilbert Bachelu, all were part of Reille's II Corps at Waterloo and each of them was wounded during the battle. Whilst doing some background research on each of these men I came across Frenchempire.net which is a fantastic website with details of each of the commanders throughout Napoleon's reign.

I got a copy of the Black Powder rules for Christmas along with the Warlord Russian Build an Army (which is still in limbo as some of the boxes provided were wrong). One thing I hadn't appreciated before I read Black Powder was the importance of having command figures, so the first thing I did is look up a suitable pack so I could knock some up!

As always the Perry horses are very nice and the figures themselves have nice poses. I did pick these minis specifically for the poses so if I ever have a game I'll come up with some sort of fictional names for them as I seem to be gravitating towards the 1813 campaign as my preferred time rather than just 1815.

I'm very happy with the grey horse, and it's made me a little ashamed of my previous attempts at horses.

I've also included a couple of spare Victrix officers on the command stand and some very nice casualty figures from Offensive Miniatures which I think add a lot more character and drama to poses. I kinda like to think that Campi is in discussion with two officers about the days battle plan, Foy is encouraging a column of infantry into the attack and Bachelu is alone on his horse contemplating the human cost.

There are a couple of stands of Voltigeurs from the French infantry set I've been slogging through for the past few months. The Victrix poses have really grown on me since I've been painting them and it is nice to have a change from the generic march pose, but, at the same time I don't have a clue how I'm going to put them together as a battalion. I seem to have given every company a officer, drummer, standard bearer or Porte-Aigle.

Without any further rambling here's the latest!